Week 1. Course Overview and introduction: What is media? What is culture? How does media influence society, and viceversa?
Reading:
From the textbook: “Introduction”, pp. 1-6
"The construction of news', pp. 127-137
Watching:
selected clips from YouTube
Week 2. Media Technologies
Readings:
Chapter II “Media Technologies” pp. 19-31
Recommended readings:
McLuhan, Marshall, “Media Hot and Cold”, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 24-35; 45-52.
Watching:
selected clips from “Annie Hall” (1977); “Videodrome” (1983)
Week 3. Critical approaches to media industries: Frankfurt School & Ideology Critique
Reading:
From the textbook: pp 105-112
From Kellner, D (1995) Media culture: cultural studies, identity and politics between the modern and the postmodern': pp 57-62
Watching: selected clips from YouTube
Exercise: how to apply ideology critique to media texts
Week 4. Critical approaches to media industries: Political Economy of Communication part I
Reading:
From the textbook: pp 40-56; 118
Selected readings from:
Mosco, Vincent The Political Economy of Communication (London: Sage, 2009)
Holt, Jennifer & Perren, Alisa (eds), Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2009)
Classroom case study: the political economy of a TV network
Week 5. Political Economy of Communication part II: a focus on Herman & Chomsky's Propaganda Model
Readings:
From the textbook: 118-120
Fuchs ( 2018), Propaganda 2.0: Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model in the Age of the Internet, Big Data and Social Media. Westminister Press
Classroom case study: applying Herman & Chomsky's model to social media
Week 6. Political Economy of Communication part III: Media and cultural imperialism
*first short paper due
Reading:
From the textbook: pp 120-125
Michael Curtin "Thinking Globally: from Media Imperialism to Media Capital", in Holt, Jennifer & Perren, Alisa (eds), Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2009).
Classroom case study: applying media and cultural imperialism theories to contemporary global media flows
Week 7
Class recap (14 Oct) & Midterm exam (16 Oct)
Week 8. Introducing Cultural Studies part I: Gramsci, Hall, and the idea of hegemony
* Library workshop
Reading:
From the textbook: Chapter V “Media Users”, pp 92-99.
Selected readings from: Longhurst, Brian, et al. Introducing Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 2017)
Recommended reading: Hall, Stuart (1974) “The television discourse; encoding and decoding”, in (2002), McQuail's Reader in Mass Communication Theory (London: SAGE), pp. 303-308.
Week 9. Introducing Cultural Studies part II: the study of subcultures
Reading:
Selected readings from the textbook and from: Longhurst, Brian, et al. Introducing Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 2017).
Week 10. Ethnography & other methods in cultural studies
Reading:
Selected readings from the textbook and from: Longhurst, Brian, et al. Introducing Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 2017).
Week 11. Media, gender & sexuality
Reading:
Selected readings from the textbook and from: Longhurst, Brian, et al. Introducing Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 2017).
Week 12. Media, ethnicity, Orientalism
Reading:
Selected readings from the textbook and from: Longhurst, Brian, et al. Introducing Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 2017).
Week 13. Introduction to Semiotics
Wrap up and review of main concepts
Reading:
Selected readings from the textbook and from: Longhurst, Brian, et al. Introducing Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 2017).
*Final paper due
Week 14.
*Oral presentations
Final exam: classroom test